Delusional
by Kiera Kingsley
Summary: Bobby's POV; his deepest fear comes true.
1. Chapter 1

Nina spoke to me today. She told me her name, giggling quietly as she introduced herself. She sounds so soft, so sweet, so soothing and gentle. Her voice is warm and melodious, coloured with delighted laughter.  
  
I hate her voice, I hate the alluring, enticing power it holds over me-- "Bobby, honey, why won't you listen to me? Why can't we be friends, Bobby?" I hate her. I hate her.  
  
I don't hear voices in my head. I don't.  
  
I haven't been losing weight and feeling tired all the time. Eames just looks concerned because she overreacts about everything, and I don't care what Deakins says or thinks, he's wrong. I zoned out a couple of times last week because it had been a long day, all right? Nothing wrong with that. It's perfectly normal.  
  
Nothing is wrong. Everything is fine.  
  
Except that Nina won't quit talking to me. She won't shut up, and I can't stop listening, and I want her to go away--but she doesn't.  
  
I'm alone in my house. I'm swearing, I'm yelling, I'm begging and I'm nearly crying, and all she does is laugh. I cover my ears and hum loudly... she doesn't stop.  
  
Her voice hypnotises me like a vicious snake, coiling itself around my mind. I can't think. Let me think. Oh, God, make this stop, make her go away...  
  
I pound a pillow in frustration, sending it hurtling across the room. It bangs into the wall and crumples to the floor. Nina sarcastically imitates my screams of rage, her voice exaggeratedly heavy and deep.  
  
I won't listen. I'll take a deep breath, block her out, and go into the kitchen to make dinner. What's in the refrigerator? Maybe I should go out... I'm not listening. I'm not hearing her. Nina is not real. Nina does not exist.  
  
And I am not going crazy.  
  
Nothing is wrong. Everything is fine.  
  
***  
  
More to come soon. Please review... 


	2. Chapter 2

Oh, God, God, why is this happening to me?  
  
Today I woke up and saw huge spiders crawling up the bedroom walls. Big black shadows, clicking and hissing and swarming in corners. They scuttled across the ceiling and clustered above my head.  
  
I dove into my blankets and curled up in a ball, my hands clenched around my ears and my eyes wide in the darkness.  
  
The way I saw it, I had two options. Either my apartment had been infested by a insidious mass of oversized spiders during the night...  
  
...or I was having a hallucination.  
  
Go away, I prayed. Get out. Go. Leave, now. Please...  
  
The sounds of the spiders did not stop. I felt them beginning to scurry over the blanket, slithering and scrambling all over, scrabbling at the cracks between the covers and the sheets. I whimpered slightly and clutched the blankets closer around myself.  
  
Go away. Get out. Go. Leave, now. Please...  
  
I don't know how long I stayed like that, huddled up in the blankets with my eyes screwed shut and my teeth clenched. I do remember that it was dangerously close to leaving time when I poked my head out cautiously. I remember shedding the blankets, tossing aside the sheets, and rustling quickly into some clothes.  
  
I got to work OK. No crashes, no sudden bursts of rage, just a nice even ride to the office. I'm here now. It's sunny outside, and the precinct is hot and stifling. Nothing has happened, it's a fairly boring day. Nothing to do but prepare the report on that double homicide with Eames. But I'm still drowsy from waking up so early--I get so tired lately, I've got to get to bed earlier--and I nearly nod off as we pass papers and folders back and forth over the desk.  
  
Eames ends up snapping her fingers in my face. "Hello? Goren? Earth to Detective Goren...?"  
  
"Right, right," I murmur, blinking furiously and shuffling my papers together. They're all messed up. I don't care. I'm too sleepy to care.  
  
Eames peers over curiously at my stack of sheets and raises her eyebrows. "Goren, that's the information for the Poleski art theft," she informs me, taking the papers from me with a gentle tug. "The report on the Considine murders must still be on the desk, wait a minute... here we go." This time she hands me the right file folder.  
  
"Thanks." I try to smile; I'm sure the result is hideous. Eames doesn't seem to notice or mind as we head towards Deakins's office.  
  
The captain nods at us as we enter. "So, what do you have for me?" he asks in his dry, languid tone.  
  
Eames talks as I settle myself into a chair at the back, rubbing my forehead. It's even hotter in Deakins's office, sweltering and muggy, and I slouch down in my seat as my eyelids droop.  
  
"You're so cute when you do that... why don't you just go for a little nap?"  
  
No. No. It's not her. It's not Nina. Nina is not speaking to me. She's giggling softly, humming tunelessly as she continues, and her words seep like slow drops of sweet honey into my mind.  
  
"Of course, Alex wouldn't be impressed if you dozed off, like some old geezer... Look at her. Look at her talking, Bobby. Isn't she adorable? So young and pretty..."  
  
You leave her out of this!  
  
"You know, I think she may be flirting a bit with Deakins... what a naughty girl she is... you'd love it if she flirted with you, wouldn't you, Bobby? You've always been simply obsessed with her, ever since you met her... but you're so afraid, Bobby, darling, you're so afraid of getting your heart broken again... you poor, poor thing. Mind you, she probably wouldn't want you anyway. If she knew what you were thinking, right now..."  
  
Oh, God, stop this. Stop this. I can't take this. Please, make Nina go away.  
  
"Or what you think at nights, alone in your bed... I wonder, what if she knew about that, Bobby? Would she laugh and sneer in your face? Would she get angry and refuse to talk you? Would she blush with shame and never look you in the eyes again?"  
  
Stop it! I'm not listening... I'm not listening...  
  
"Goren!"  
  
Eames and Deakins are staring at me. "Yes?" I manage hoarsely.  
  
"Your report?" Deakins says pointedly, gesturing for me to stand up. Eames is silent, her eyebrows knitted in a knot of confusion and worry, as I lurch to my feet.  
  
She will tell me, much later, that I rambled on incoherently for three full minutes. I slurred and stumbled through my sentences, repeated the word "have" over and over for several seconds at a time, and burst into loud laughter at the end for no apparent reason.  
  
All I know, right now, is that I'm done. I'm breathless, uncertain, and slightly dizzy, but I'm done speaking, so I sit down in the chair.  
  
Eames stares at me, her eyes and mouth wide open, before suddenly sealing her lips in a thin line. Something watery shines too brightly in her blue eyes. From the look on his face, Deakins is obviously baffled--and concerned. Why is he concerned? Why is she trying not to cry?  
  
"Goren," Deakins says slowly, as if speaking to a small child. "I'm giving you the day off. Why don't you go home and rest?"  
  
"Sir, I'm fine."  
  
"No, you're not," Eames interrupts quietly. There's a tone in her voice that makes me stare at her. "You're not. Bobby, please, go home."  
  
Bobby? Nobody calls me Bobby anymore. Nobody but Nina. "I--"  
  
"Detective." Deakins's voice has sharpened. "It's an order. Go home and stay there."  
  
OK. Fine. Just humour them, and they'll stop. "Yes, sir." 


	3. Chapter 3

Thank you for the reviews, everyone! :-D  
  
***  
  
I don't like making promises. They get broken too easily. I should know.  
  
But one night I couldn't fall asleep because my father had disappeared somewhere and my mother had locked herself in her room. She was screaming like a wild, demented creature, tearing at the walls with her nails and banging her fists against the doors, the windows. Through the shrieks I could hear a mix of shuddering tears and crazy, hysterical laughter.  
  
I had a book in one hand; I tried to read. I tried to play with the toys stashed away underneath my bed. I punched my pillow. I tossed around my baseball.  
  
I was nine years old...maybe ten. I can't remember anymore.  
  
So I sat on the rug on my floor, in the darkness, and stared out the window. Listening, trying not to hear, and thinking--a vow, a promise: if this happened to me, I wouldn't deny it. I wouldn't smooth down my hair in the morning and wash my face and pretend everything was fine. I'd go see a doctor. I wouldn't turn out like my mother.  
  
But now I can't. Now, when I need help the most, I can't bring myself to find it. Because I'm scared that I'll end up like she did, trapped in the bare white walls of an asylum.  
  
I waited and worked and wished my whole life to not end up like my parents. I tried--and it's hard work, when your mother is a lunatic and your father is an abusive alcoholic--I tried to be normal. I did the routine things other people do. I went to college, I graduated, and I got a job. I did a stint in the army. And when I walked down the street, past people looking through their purses and talking on their cell phones and reading magazines, I pretended I was one of them. An ordinary person with an ordinary past.  
  
It's such a thin line between reality and insanity.  
  
***  
  
It's a group of voices now. A swarm of voices, buzzing and hissing like flies. They whisper, they murmur, they shush and sigh. Nina is gone, but there are others... so many others. These don't have names.  
  
I'm lost. I don't know what street I'm on anymore.  
  
They talk of snakes, gliding noiselessly along the ground and coiling around my legs with flickering tongues and dry, hollow rattles, and I can see and feel snakes. They talk of worms wriggling in my sleeves and collar, oozing away to leave wet trails of gooey, grimy slime, and the worms are there. I hear the crackling crunch of cockroach shells in my shoes and shrill, high-pitched squeals with each step I take.  
  
It's not real.  
  
But what is real anymore?  
  
***  
  
Warning: the next chapter will be long, and told from Eames's POV.  
  
What did you think? Review please! :-) 


	4. Chapter 4

I haven't heard from Goren in two days.  
  
Two days. Two whole days of sitting around doing dull, boring, endless, mindless paperwork. I think if I see another form to fill out, I'll scream, pull out my hair... maybe put my head through the wall.  
  
Whenever I got exasperated with Goren, I used to think how annoying and nerve-wracking my job was with him around. But just until now, I hadn't realized how tedious work was without him. Yeah, there are times when he drives me insane, but there are times--moments when he gives me that smile that nobody else sees--when it's all worth it.  
  
But lately he's been acting... The first time I noticed anything weird, it was during a coffee break. He went outside before I did; I came out a few minutes later and found him sitting on one of the benches.  
  
Goren never sits on benches during coffee breaks. He hates sitting still. If we go outside, he's in constant motion--pacing, shuffling, strolling, always walking. But this time he was just sitting there, staring straight ahead at nothing.  
  
I went up to him and waved my hand in front of his face, snapping my fingers once or twice. It was only after a few seconds had passed that he started and looked up at me in blank confusion. When I asked him what was wrong, he didn't answer--just started talking about the morning's caseload, as if nothing had happened.  
  
I figured he was just tired. I mean, Goren drives himself pretty hard at work, and I don't know what he does when he gets home. It happens to everybody.  
  
But it happened again. And again, and again. Soon he was forgetting things, dropping objects, rambling on and trailing off in the middle of sentences, coming in with tousled hair and rumpled clothes--Goren, who never omits a single detail, who keeps himself and his desk painstakingly neat and tidy, who pays careful attention to everything. It was like my partner had vanished into thin air.  
  
I went home and sat down at my computer, because I was thinking things that I didn't want to think were true, and logged onto the Web. I surfed through some sites and found it. Everything. All the details, all the characteristics, there.  
  
Goren was displaying the symptoms of a disorganized-type schizophrenic.  
  
I didn't want to believe it. It couldn't be true. I knew about his mother, of course, but the odds were low, and... maybe he was just under a lot of stress. Maybe I was wrong. I probably was wrong.  
  
But it all fit. It all made sense.  
  
And now it's been too days, and everything is way too quiet. I'm getting really worried now, worried and nervous. I phoned Bobby a couple of times yesterday, just to see if he was okay, and got his answering machine each time. I went over in the evening to knock on his door; there was no answer. I waited outside for about ten or fifteen minutes before giving up and going home.  
  
I'm walking home now. I got off the bus a lot earlier than usual to walk by Goren's apartment--just in case, you know, I happen to meet him. It's cold and rainy and I'm shivering with my hands stuffed in my pockets; I trudge along in my clumping, clunking boots. I hate these boots. They're clumsy and heavy, with these huge chunky soles and thick leather laces, but they're great for splashing in puddles.  
  
There's a bridge close by Goren's apartment, spanning a ravine about fifteen or sixteen feet across. The banks are high and steep, the jagged grey rocks slippery and splattered with blotches of dark green moss. Far below the murky dull brown water flows smoothly, without a single ripple-- meaning it's deep and dangerous. Nobody goes swimming in that river, not if they don't want to get drowned. You pass it as you walk down the dirt path that lies at the edge of the playground; to get to the apartment, you turn left on the trail instead of right, which leads you onto the bridge.  
  
I'm going down the path. It's getting darker, either stormier or later in the evening--in this rain, I can't tell which. The branches hanging above me are whipped into a frenzy by the wind, lashing out with hissing stings as they rustle their leaves and spray rainwater everywhere.  
  
I reach the fork, barely glancing at the bridge, and...  
  
Oh, my God.  
  
Approach him slowly. Don't scream, don't panic, just walk towards him very quietly and calmly.  
  
"Goren?"  
  
He doesn't turn his head to look at me. He's staring down at the water; it's churned up by the rain, making a gurgling, burbling noise interspersed with light splashes. The river isn't dull brown anymore, but a dark inky black that swirls fluidly about the rocks on the bank. The wind picks up and ruffles the surface of the water.  
  
"Goren..."  
  
"What are you doing here?" His voice is barely recognizable--low, rough, hoarse, filled with a harsh, grating anguish.  
  
"I came to visit you... I was worried..." His feet are shuffling along the edge; my breath catches in my throat and I swallow hard. His hands cling to the railing as he leans out slightly, tilting forwards.  
  
If he lets go...  
  
"Don't," I beg, words tumbling out of my mouth in a rush. "Please, don't, it's not worth it, you can't do this, you've got so much to live for, please don't--"  
  
He's not listening. Is he? A muscle in his jaw flickers as it tightens; he clenches his fingers convulsively, his knuckles white and blistered raw.  
  
"Goren, come back over the railing," I plead. "Let's talk. You don't have to do this. Please?"  
  
"Go away."  
  
"I can't." Ever so slowly I take a step closer; he doesn't move.  
  
"Get out of here!" Quieter, more bitterly, "You should be grateful. I won't be your problem anymore."  
  
"You're not my problem, Goren, you never have been. I--"  
  
Goren twists around to see me and I see it--the despair, the rage, the bewilderment, and those terrible blank, uncomprehending eyes.  
  
He's lost it. He's lost his mind.  
  
"Go away!" he roars with such force and intensity that I jump backwards, startled, even as tears roll down his cheeks. "Get out of here! Get out!"  
  
"I can't," I repeat dumbly. I can't leave, I can't stay, I can't think... oh, God, what do I do? He's going to jump, any minute now--  
  
He turns away. He tense his shoulders, he lets out a short breath--  
  
My feet are clattering along the bridge, my long skirt is whirling and whipping around my ankles as I run--  
  
--and he lets go.  
  
*** 


	5. Chapter 5

I can't stop shivering. This place is so cold. Why don't they turn up the heat? It's freezing in here. The walls are white and hard and everything is so bright it hurts my eyes.  
  
They told me the person walking their dog along the road saw me first. They told me it was a she, a blond young woman in her twenties with a border collie. They said I was clinging to the railing, my fingers bloodless and my face deadly white, and screaming uncontrollably. They said that I wouldn't stop crying, that the lady kept trying to calm me down as her dog barked frantically and she phoned the ambulance on her cell.  
  
That's what they say. Me, I don't remember any of this. I don't think I want to.  
  
They found him. They brought him to the hospital--he's in there now. He's inside that room; doctors keep filing in, bringing needles and vials and clipboards, and nobody's come out yet. I'm sitting outside and waiting. And waiting.  
  
I keep thinking: He said he was my problem. Why would he think that? Did I do this to him? Is all of this my fault?  
  
And so the minutes go by. It's late at night; there's barely any noise, just the low hum of chatter and the distant drone of the furnace. A few nurses wander up and down the hall; someone steps off the elevator bearing a huge bouquet of flowers and disappears down the corridor. And I wait.  
  
***  
  
He has schizophrenia. The doctors confirmed it; one of them came out to tell me in a calm, dispassionate voice. I don't remember who it was. Somebody with brown hair and glasses.  
  
I'm sitting outside alone again. They've all disappeared. It's just me, this chair, this hallway, and the open door two steps away. There's no noise coming from inside the room.  
  
Slowly, I get up. My legs ache, so I stretch a little bit. My heels clatter on the tiles, the clicking echoing off the walls. It's a loud sound in the silence and I almost startle myself.  
  
I poke my head around the doorway and peer inside.  
  
He's alive. Bruised, battered, bleeding, pale and broken, but thank God, he's alive. He's awake now, and staring out the window. He doesn't react as I come in.  
  
"Bobby?"  
  
No answer. What did I expect him to say, after all?  
  
"I have to go now, I... I... I just wanted to tell you..."  
  
Everything. Anything. Something to make this all better, something that will break the silence between us, something that will bring you back from the dark, empty world you're lost in.  
  
"I love you." It comes easier than I thought, so I say it again. "Bobby, I love you. I can't help it, even if I tried--you make me love you with everything you do, everything you say. Let me love you, please, let me help you. Please, don't shut me out." But you will. I know you, and I can't accept that. "Don't--don't leave. Don't go where nobody can find you. Come back."  
  
I'm pleading now. I don't care. I just want to reach him.  
  
He doesn't look at me. But as I get up, left with nothing but defeat and frustration, I hear a small strangled noise. I sit back down and hold out a hand, open, with the palm up, ready to receive, ready to accept.  
  
And when he puts his arms around me and buries his face in my shoulder as he holds on for dear life, making those strange little choking sounds, I'm not sure whether to smile or cry.  
  
*** 


	6. Chapter 6

It's cold because it's still early in the morning. The sky is a clear grey and the sun is casting a pale glow behind the frosty clouds. Everything around me is still in dull shades of colour, cast with shadows and dim light.  
  
I've been doing some walking around, not to anywhere in particular. Just out and about. And now I'm back at the bridge and peering over the railing, staring down into the swirling water.  
  
It looks freezing down there.  
  
I think of icy water, swirling and swishing, gurgling above my head as I land with a splash. I think of flailing and floundering, burbling in bursts of bubbles, choking and gagging. And the steady, relentless sweep of the current, and the dark jagged line of sharp rocks, and everything going black as I dissolve into the rushing water...  
  
And her voice. I heard her screaming as I fell, and that scream went on forever--ringing in my ears, echoing in my head--a high, keening cry that turned into a long wail of anguish.  
  
I didn't die after all, though. They found me and dragged me out. Some stranger walking by saw Alex standing at the railing, still screaming, and called an ambulance. I woke up in a narrow hospital bed with doctors hovering around me, checking their charts, filling needles, taking my pulse and temperature, and I wanted to die.  
  
They left soon after and Alex came in. I could see tear traces on her pale, faded cheeks; her lip was split and smeared with blood--I think she must have bit it too hard, and not noticed. She came into my room and sat down at my bedside.  
  
I didn't look at her. I kept on wanting to die, as a hard, heavy lump of ice froze inside my chest, thinking: Why couldn't I have died in the river? Why couldn't I have been spared this?  
  
"I love you," I heard her say. "Bobby, I love you. I can't help it, even if I tried--you make me love you with everything you do, everything you say. Let me love you, please, let me help you. Please, don't shut me out. Don't-- don't leave. Don't go where nobody can find you. Come back."  
  
She loved me. She loves me.  
  
The block of ice dissolved into a watery blur in my eyes. I held onto her then, holding her close, and cried away all of the grief and anger and tension; I emptied myself into my tears--I let it all go, everything.  
  
Then she bent down her head and kissed me--and not on the cheek or the forehead, but a real kiss, a long one. I've never tasted anything sweeter.  
  
It's getting close to seven now... I should go back inside. The clouds are getting darker and thicker, it looks like it's going to rain. I lift my head, rubbing my stiff, cold fingers together, and--  
  
Did I just hear--?  
  
No. It's only the rustling leaves in the trees. It's nothing.  
  
I stand for a moment longer, lingering at the railing, and listen. But all I hear is the rain as it starts to fall in a light patter, tapping on the stones and splashing in the gurgling river, and the rushing roar of the wind.  
  
***  
  
And so ends what I now call "the story that ate my life and burped it up in a slimy, half-congealed goo two weeks later" :-) Thank you for your reviews, everyone, and see you next time around! 


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